By Naomi Dolin-Aubertin
1. Not All Clouds are Equal
That may sound strange, but when you are looking to switch out your servers for the cloud, there are some things you want to keep in mind. As a business, you most likely offer your customers a guarantee that their information will be kept safe and secure.

Big corporations have had the advantage and ability to outsource their IT systems for quite some time, but small and mid-sized businesses, until recently, had more difficulty accessing the same competitive advantage. Security concerns and high capital expenditures (traditionally required to access these services) were among the major obstacles for these types of organizations to jump onto the managed services bandwagon.

Still relying on antivirus software to protect your network and valuable business information? Today’s cybercriminals are more sophisticated than ever, which means that more than antivirus software is needed to keep your company safe. Although antivirus plays a critical role in security, it alone doesn’t protect against all the threats continually being made against your systems.

Most people involved in small businesses know how complicated and stressful day to day operations can be. SMBs are constantly looking for ways to simplify their daily to-do list and many are finding that the cloud is one of the best ways to do it. A recent survey done by SpiceWorks, a software development company, found that around 46% of new small businesses are now using cloud services for things like web hosting, phone, fax and even storage, and in the future many more new and established small businesses will follow suit.

Now more than ever, companies are exposed to different types of risks that threaten to prevent their long-term success. A big part of those risks consists of disasters that can go from a simple server crash to property and equipment loss due to a natural disaster.

We've recently jumped to rank 215 out of 501 Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in the world! MSPs are ranked on a range of metrics, including annual recurring revenue(ARR), total devices managed, revenue per employee, growth rates (percentageand dollar figures), and services.

Mobile applications are so popular that by 2014 their consumer spending is estimated to reach a whopping 25.5 billion dollars. That’s more than the revenue generated by professional United States basketball, football, baseball and hockey – combined1. Unfortunately, as the industry grows, so do users’ exposure to malware and hacking, making it more likely for mobile devices to get infected by malicious code.

Hosted VoIP is a service that transports voice calls and messages over an IP network, or the Internet, rather than over a traditional telephone network. With either Cloud-based or premise-based VoIP systems, AT&T; calls this growing technology “The next generation of converged communications.

1.     Click on the xpulse icon in the lower right hand corner of your monitor.2.     Send an email to support@directnetworksinc.com. The ticket will be created automatically using the subject line of your email as the ticket title.

Apple promises that the iPhone 5 is the thinnest, fastest and most brilliant mobile phone ever made, and while it isn’t officially in stores just yet, I would have to say that consumers agree. The phone’s scheduled release was set for Sept. 21st, but now if you order one off Apple’s website you’ll see that the phone isn’t available to ship for another two weeks.